


maybe the real mothman was the friends we made along the way

by InfinityJay



Category: Fence (Comics)
Genre: Cryptid Hunting, M/M, Mothman, Road Trips, this is like half serious and half bullshit
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-20
Updated: 2020-09-19
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:34:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 15,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26011231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InfinityJay/pseuds/InfinityJay
Summary: When Nick and crew plan their trip to hunt for the elusive Mothman, the most unbelievable, unrealistic possibility is that Seiji would have anything to do with it.
Relationships: Nicholas Cox & Bobby Rodriguez & Eugene Labao, Nicholas Cox/Seiji Katayama
Comments: 21
Kudos: 38





	1. the beginning

**Author's Note:**

> hey guys. i wasn't going to post this until i had it all finished, but i've been sitting on this for a few months and lately i've been losing energy to like write in general. i've got about half of it done and i don't want to just power through it bc i actually like what i've written and i want to give it the attention and effort i think it deserves. 
> 
> so, i'm gonna post it to get that sweet sweet validation i crave. if people like it, maybe i'll post what else i have finished and maybe i'll finally complete it. that banks on feedback, tho. 🥺 i WOULD like to find that motivation that i had before to finish this, so please comment your thoughts.
> 
> love y'all. xoxo

Nick hopes they can beat the rain, but his luck has always been more towards the shit end of the spectrum. (He landed Seiji as a roommate, after all.) When the clouds first rolled in, he hoped they would hurry. Now, he hopes they hold it in a little longer.

One day. Just one day, and they’ll be out of the state and out of the way of the storm chugging at full steam in their direction.

And, hopefully, away from the humidity.

Every breath might as well be an attempt at breathing underwater. It’s bad enough as it is, soaking through their clothes, but the December chill freezes their muscles and locks their joints. And he’s always so damn wet.

Nick can barely stand to be outside for longer than a minute. He’s been running to and from the Salle, which wouldn’t normally be a big deal if it weren’t for the ice slick sidewalks doing a number on his ankles. He slipped more in the past month than he has in his entire life.

If it gets any wetter, they’ll have to start swimming. Nick hadn’t factored becoming semiaquatic in his career plans, and he really doesn’t want to, now.

He also doesn’t want to drive long-haul through the rain. Not in a Prius.

“Of course, you would have a Prius,” Nick says, making a noise halfway between a laugh and a scoff.

Pausing in his efforts to shove the hatch-back closed without organizing their bags, Bobby levels him a narrowed look. “I’m sorry, Nick, are you being homophobic, right now?”

“No—N—Course not,” Nick says, throwing up his hands like Bobby’s pointing a gun at him. “I just mean that I—know how much you care about the environment, and I figured you would have a car that reflects that.”

Bobby squints at him. “Mhmm.”

The door latch clicks as it catches and Bobby steps back with a huff, looking mighty satisfied with himself. Nick claps for him from where he stands by Eugene a few paces away. Neither had offered to help.

“Do you think Mothman is homophobic?” Eugene asks, scratching his jaw.

“I hope not, or we’re all fucked,” Nick says. “Is that everything? Mission is a go at oh-fifteen hundred hours tomorrow?”

“Uh, yeah, it’s everything except what we haven’t packed,” Bobby says.

“Oh, word? Let’s go get something to eat,” Eugene says, clapping his hands and rubbing his palms together. “I’m starving.”

Bobby makes sure his car is locked—not that anybody’s going to steal from a _Prius—_ and scampers over to them. “I heard the caf’s serving salmon and lentils for dinner.”

“Protein _and_ grain? Hell, yeah!”

“First, I have to wheel by the Salle,” Nick says, starting in that direction.

“Huh?” Eugene hums, rushing to catch up to him as Bobby says, “No more practice, babe, please. The season’s over.”

“No, I’m—” He laughs, the last syllable ticking up nervously. “I forgot a few shirts in my locker that I, uh, don’t want to leave there for a week.”

They nod in understanding. “Oof,” Eugene sympathizes.

Their last team meeting of the season had been especially loaded, emotionally. Nick had been so caught up in the seniors’ heartfelt (at least for Harvard) speeches that he forgot to grab some of the riper shirts hanging in his locker. He’d rather not come back from their trip and find a monster there, chewing up his equipment.

Instead of taking the backdoor into the locker room, they walk through the empty lobby. Raised voices bleed through the salle doors and Nick’s steps falter. He can’t make out the words, but he’d recognize those voices anywhere. He’s practically been hearing them when he sleeps.

Sure enough, when he pushes the door open, Coach Williams and Seiji, in full fencing get-up, are arguing on the piste. Seiji’s face is very near pink with emotion. It isn’t hard for Nick to guess what emotion; he’s pretty sure Seiji only knows one. Their discussion dies when the door creaks open, and two pairs of eyes cut a line to the intruders.

Nick takes a timid step into the room, smiling tightly and waving. “Uh, hi. Just, uh, grabbing something from the locker room,” he offers by way of explanation.

Neither responds to him. They turn back to their heated debate, their voices carrying through the still air. The length of floor between the lobby and the locker rooms has never seemed so vast.

“You worked hard this season, Seiji. Take a break,” Williams says, crossing her arms over her chest.

Nick knows a dismissal when he sees one, but Seiji is a little slower on the uptake. That, or he doesn’t give a shit. “The number one fencer in the nation spot won’t wait for me to _take a break_ ,” Seiji practically spits, the muscle in his jaw twitching. Nick rolls his eyes so hard he nearly blacks out.

“The number one fencer in the nation spot will be waiting for you after New Years,” Williams says, her eyes cool and her words steely. “You’re not a machine, kid. You deserve a much-needed vacation.”

“My father said—”

“Your father isn’t the boss of me, and I already talked it over with your mom. She agrees with me. Even asked me to confiscate your gear until school restarts.”

Seiji sputters, “My mother—!” His mouth opens and closes while he finds and discards responses, looking for all intents and purposes like a dumb fish.

“Yes, your mother. The word of God.”

So close. The locker room is right there. Nick can almost reach out… and touch it…

“She thinks you should take a trip during your vacation, like these guys.” Williams motions to the boys trying to discreetly slip into the locker room. They stop in their tracks. “You’re going out of state this weekend, right?”

Nick is the first to rediscover his voice, answering by reflex. “Yeah. West Virginia.”

Williams turns to Seiji, again. “See? That sounds fun. You should go with them.” Nick isn’t sure what expression he makes, but he has a hunch it’s mirrored on Bobby, Eugene, and Seiji’s faces. Shock, with a little dread peppered in. “Can he tag along with you guys?”

Humiliation is the color now capping Seiji’s ears. Nick almost feels bad for him; nothing sucks as hard as a teacher intervening to help you make friends. And Nick can’t help but agree with her. Seiji _does_ deserve a break. He busted ass for months, and Exton still beat them to Nationals. They were hard-pressed to get him to relax of his own volition.

And, dammit, when a friend asks for help, you help ‘em. Even if he isn’t asking for help and he looks very much like he would rather eat his own dehydrated piss. Seiji’s entire existence is a cry for help, Nick thinks.

“If he throws down for gas, sure,” Nick says, holding onto a cool front while Bobby and Eugene gape. Seiji’s look spells death. Nick ignores him.

Williams uncrosses her arms to dig into her pocket. “Perfect,” she says, already turning to leave. “I’ll call your mom and let her know.”

“W—Coach, wait.” Seiji sends Nick one last withering glare before rushing after Williams.

Nick doesn’t stick around to see the fallout. The others follow him quietly into the locker room, but he doesn’t get further than a few steps before Bobby says, “What just happened?”

Nick opens his locker and flinches at the smell. Eugene plops onto the nearby bench. “I think our trio just became a quartet,” he says, his eyes on Nick’s back.

“Wait, so that really happened and I wasn’t having some psychotic break? Is Seiji—Seiji Katayama, nationally ranked fencing prodigy—coming with us on our monster-hunting trip?”

“Mothman isn’t a monster,” Nick says, wadding up his stinkiest shirts and shoving them to the bottom of his backpack. They ignore him.

“Yes,” Eugene answers. “I think Seiji’s coming with us on our monster-hunting trip. Did you—No, I know you didn’t think this through, dude. He’s gonna bring down the general vibe of this bro-trip.”

“Yeah, concur. He’ll just whine the entire time about the time we’re wasting on trivial stuff instead of fencing,” Bobby says, dropping onto the spot beside Eugene. “He would use that word, too: trivial!”

Nick gawks at Bobby, whom he thought would be more on his side. “What happened to _oh, Seiji’s such a dreamboat, Nick, you have to introduce me_? Yeah, I’m talking to you.”

Bobby crosses his arms. “I was exposed to him for long periods of time. I think that would ruin anyone’s good opinion of him.” Eugene points at him in agreement.

Nick frowns. After spending six-odd months in close proximity with Seiji, he’d found that Seiji wasn’t always awful and could actually be—dare he say it—alright to exist around. The exact opposite of Bobby’s discovery. Not that Seiji would care what they say about him, but it rubs Nick the wrong way to talk about him when he can’t defend himself.

“Come on, guys. He’s cool to hang out with when he’s not obsessing over fencing,” he offers, shutting his locker and shouldering his bag.

“Huh. Just like you,” Bobby says as he bounces up to Nick’s side.

The Salle is, thankfully, empty when they leave the locker room, but Nick has an inkling the war is far from over. “I’m still pretty fun when I’m obsessing, too,” he defends.

“You know he’s cool because…?” Eugene asks, bringing them back to the topic at hand. “Have you ever chilled with him?”

He has not. Unless silently watching Exton matches together in their dorm counts, which he’s sure doesn’t.

“Is he even capable of chilling?”

“Listen. _I’m sure_ he’s cool to hang out with when he’s not obsessing,” Nick says, though it sounds weak even to himself. They make faces like they don’t believe him. “How about this: he’s our teammate and he needs help and we need to bond and be a more cohesive team by next season if we want to beat Exton. Heard?”

They don’t look convinced, but neither argue. “Is that your pitch for captain?” Bobby teases.

Nick ignores him and says, “I can’t believe he’s already training for next season, though. Like, I know he’s a fencing wunderkind or something, but the season _just_ ended.”

“Oh, so you’re telling me that as soon as we get back next week,” Eugene says, leaning forward, “you won’t be right where he is?”

Nick sputters. “At least I’m taking a few days off!”

“Trading one obsession for another,” Bobby hums knowingly.

“It!” Nick glares at him, blushing despite his best efforts. “Isn’t an obsession.”

Eugene elbows Bobby conspiratorially and says with a grin, “I don’t even know which one he’s talking about.” Bobby presses a hand to his mouth to cover his laughter.

Nick rolls his eyes. He halts in front of the front doors. “You’re both assholes. You ready to run?”

They book it back to Castello, sprinting to keep their knees from freezing over. Winded, they pause between their rooms.

“Mine?” Eugene offers. Bobby and Nick nod and follow him into his dorm. Nick claims his bed, flopping back onto it, and Bobby perches on the desk with his feet propped up by the chair.

While rifling through the dresser, Eugene finds a twenty-dollar bill half-tucked under a golfing trophy. He mutters something about his roommate and pulls out his phone. “Hey, Thomas,” he says into it. “I’m alright, thanks. No, I haven’t left yet. You forgot a twenty—yep, under Tiger. Oh, ye—Actually, can I borrow it? You know I’m good for it.”

Nick can only hear laughing on the other end, but Eugene is smiling when he hangs up. He shoves the twenty into his shorts pocket.

“Man, I wish I had a roommate that cool,” Nick says, propping his head up on his hand.

“I thought your roommate _was_ cool,” Bobby teases, grinning at him. Nick throws him a vulgar gesture that he only giggles at.

Eugene shoves one of Nick’s knees out of the way and sits on the edge of his bed. He pulls his legs up, crossing them at the ankle. “The reservation is set for tomorrow,” he says, thumbing through the emails on his phone. “I’ll need to tell them ahead of time that we’ll be getting there late. What time should we be there?”

Nick does the math in his head. “If we leave right after school tomorrow, then it’ll probably be about… two or three. That includes time for potty breaks.” The clouds outside are a dark gray, now. “Hopefully, we won’t have to stop for the weather.”

“’Kay. So, we have the double for… That’s three nights, then.”

“A double would have worked fine for us,” Bobby cuts in, “but what about Seiji? How’s that going to work?”

Eugene and Nick share a look. “He’s not really going with us, is he?” asks the former.

Nick opens his mouth, then closes it. He finds his words on the second try. “I doubt it,” he says. He couldn’t fathom Seiji willingly riding in a car with them for ten hours, much less hunting a cryptid.

“But Coach said—”

“There’s no way,” Nick says, event though he, himself, supplied the invitation. “Seiji can get out of anything.” Through sheer force of will, if nothing else. His reputation and _charming_ personality usually do all the work for him, though.

Bobby’s press into a grim line. “But Williams might be as stubborn as he is.”

Williams is the only person whose resolve can match Seiji’s; at least, without Aiden’s twisting words and double-speak. Theirs is always a level playing field, and Nick can never be sure of the outcome.

During the season, Williams told Seiji to help Nick better his ripostes. _Told_ is a generous way of putting it. Watching them duke it out across the piste was like watching two bulls lock horns. Nick had held his breath. In the end, Nick’s ripostes became, as much as he hates to admit it, much improved under Seiji’s severe tutelage.

But Williams didn’t always win.

Where will didn’t work, Seiji sometimes made up for it with money. During break in November, Williams and Lewis held a training camp at a literal campground just outside state lines. ( _Bonding_ , they’d said when Nick asked why they couldn’t stay on campus. Like shoving boys in tiny tents together would improve their relationships.)

Seiji wasn’t going to sleep in the dirt under a tent, oh no. Especially not with Aiden. Williams told him he would, but she had no honest authority off campus. Seiji got a hotel room nearby.

It could go either way.

So, Nick couldn’t discount the possibility of Seiji going. Especially not with how specifically they had planned.

He sets his jaw and fishes the itinerary out of his backpack. Their Mothman Bible. Eugene scrunches up his nose at the smell. Nick flips through the pages until he finds the hotel room floor plan. “So,” he says, “how we gonna fuck this pig?”

After a thoughtful moment, Bobby opens his mouth to say something. The door across the hall slams shut. All eyes go to Nick.

“Speaking of pigs that need fucking,” says Bobby, giving him a meaningful, albeit amused look. Eugene does the same.

Nick groans as he pushes himself up. “Fine. I’ll go see what’s happening. Take care of that.” He drops the planner in Eugene’s lap. He grabs the dirty shirts out of his backpack.

“Good luck,” Bobby calls to him before the door clicks shut.

Taking a breath to gather his wits, Nick opens his door. Seiji left it unlocked. The first thing Nick sees is the white jacket crumpled on the floor, like it had been flung against the wall. Alarm bells attuned to Seiji’s moods ring in his head. His fingers twist in the fabric of the shirts.

The second sign of danger is Seiji, himself, sitting on his bed with the wall at his back and his laptop open in his lap. He’s still dressed in his knickers. When Nick closes the door, Seiji doesn’t react overtly, but Nick sees the muscle in his jaw tick. Nick notes it. Best to tread lightly.

“Coach kicked you out of the Salle?” he asks amiably enough, tossing his dirty clothes into the hamper and opening up one of his dresser drawers. Back in the first few weeks of their cohabitation, Seiji had said without mincing words that the upper two drawers were his, and that Nick could cry about it.

Seiji doesn’t answer, but Nick hadn’t expected him to.

Nick studies the room: the laundry Seiji hadn’t done, the schoolbooks stacked beside his backpack, the general laxity of Seiji’s side of the room. At odds with the preparation of Eugene’s room, and probably Bobby’s. Nick takes a peek inside the top drawer, where all of Seiji’s clothes lie folded and untouched.

Seiji’s piercing eyes are now on Nick, wary. Nick meets them, his eyebrows nudging together. He frowns.

“You’re not packing,” says Nick.

“I’m not going with you,” says Seiji. He likes to answer Nick’s questions before he has the chance to ask them. That wasn’t going to be Nick’s next question, though.

“No, you—you’re not packing at all.” Seiji turns back to his laptop. Nick’s brow furrows further. “Are you _staying_ here for Christmas?”

Most of the other boys had already left, rightfully dismissing the last day of the week as pointless and in the way of their vacations to SoHo or Amsterdam or wherever young, wealthy boys go during their breaks. The rest, like Nick, Eugene, and Bobby, were getting ready to leave as soon as the law permitted. Seiji already missed the deadline to be the first one, but it doesn’t look like he’ll be the second, either.

Seiji scrolls on his laptop, unseeing. “Where else would I go?”

The cool detachedness grates on Nick’s nerves. “Uh, _home_. To your _parents_.”

“My parents are very busy people.”

Nick chews on the inside of his cheek. Seiji’s body is lined with tension, his movements jerky over the trackpad. “They won’t let you come home?”

Seiji’s fingers pause. His shoulders pull tight, some unbidden reaction. Nick has the distinct feeling he’s asked a question Seiji hadn’t expected, or have an answer to. He watches Seiji’s jaw work.

And in a logic-defying moment of vulnerability, Seiji says, “There’s no point. My father is in New York on business, my mother is still in France, and there’s a perfectly functional Salle here that I have the keys to.”

A familiar knot tightens in Nick’s chest. He can imagine it. Seiji spending hours on end practicing the same forms over and over again. Perhaps even Dmytro takes holidays. The image of Seiji spending Christmas alone settles in Nick… wrong. Seiji is his teammate. He can’t leave him here all on his own.

“No,” Nick says, gathering his resolve within him and snapping the drawers open. He grabs Seiji’s backpack and starts haphazardly stuffing shirts and shorts and unmentionables into it. “I’m not letting you stay here all alone so you can spend all of your time fencing. That—That’s not happening.”

“You’re not _letting_ me do anythi—Hey, quit it! You can’t do that!” Seiji is on his feet now, rushing toward Nick.

“But I am,” Nick says, twisting around and clutching the bag close. Seiji tries to wrest it from him, but pure-hearted camaraderie has turned his muscles to steel. “You’re coming with us. I don’t care if I have to tie you to the top of Bobby’s Prius.”

“ _No_ ,” Seiji grinds out, desperately trying to prise Nick’s arms open. “I’m not. _Give_ me my things.”

“Nuh-uh. Nope, not happening. You’re going on vacation with us and you’re going to have a good goddamn time, all right?”

Seiji’s arms don’t quit snaking around Nick, borderline desperate. Finally, he gets a solid hold on his bag and goes still. “Nicholas,” he says, absolutely lethal.

Nick twists to face his anger head-on. “Seiji.” Unmoving.

They stare each other down, neither willing to give any ground. Nick has never bothered to take Seiji on like this; he knows a losing battle when he sees one and would rather not waste the energy. But when he considers caving, all he can think of is that image of Seiji standing by himself in the Salle.

“I haven’t had a very good day.” Each word holds its own edge. Nick is pretty sure that Seiji would be shaking if it weren’t for his annoying self-control.

“Sucks.”

His face darkens. “I don’t like being told what to do.” A warning.

“Sucks.”

Seiji blows a hot breath through his nose, but Nick doesn’t look away. They stare at each other in tense silence for all of five seconds before Nick decides sheer will won’t win him this battle. He regroups, tries to appeal to Seiji’s fencing side.

“You want to beat Exton next season, don’t you?” Seiji’s eyebrows twitch minutely, an unbidden submission, and Nick knows he has him. “We won’t have Aiden and Harvard next year, ‘kay? And you can’t win on your own. You need the rest of us, and we need to be a more cohesive team. Come with us, have some fun, and let’s try to make this work, or Jesse’s going to beat us again.”

Seiji’s eyes narrow. Mentioning Jesse was the wrong move. “Bonding with me won’t make you a better fencer,” he hisses. He gives his bag an insistent tug.

Nick huffs, feeling some of the fight leave him. He doesn’t know how else to get through to Seiji. He presses his lips together and tries again.

“I want you to come with us,” he tells him, letting go of the bag. It falls to the floor between them. Seiji watches him warily. “Okay? Please?”

It’s not a lie. Seiji’s suspicion doesn’t disappear, but his jaw works as he contemplates. Nick blinks in surprise. Appealing to their nonexistent friendship was a last-ditch he didn’t think would work.

After a long moment, Seiji looks down, throat bobbing, and says, “Fine.”

Satisfaction jolts up Nick’s spine, and an inexplicable giddiness washes over him. He has never won anything against Seiji. As far as he knows, only a handful of people ever have. Seiji glares at him for it, but he can’t help the painful grin that splits his face in half.

Seiji shakes his head but sets his backpack on his bed and unzips it. He methodically folds and puts back the clothing Nick had manhandled. He drags an empty duffel bag Nick has never seen before out from under his bed and opens it wide. He glances at Nick expectantly. “What am I packing for?”

Nick nearly chokes. “Uh—Cold. Pack something warm. And, um, something to wear outside.”

Seiji gives him an odd look, but pulls some expensive-looking long-sleeved shirts from his drawer and folds and tucks them into the duffel. He grabs a fur-lined parka from the closet. Nick holds himself as still as possible. He doesn’t want to spook Seiji into changing his mind.

“How long will this trip be?” Seiji asks as he surveys the contents of his bag.

“Three days, not including travel.”

Seiji flicks his eyes to Nick, his lips drawing a hard line. “How long will I be trapped in a car with you?”

Nick snatches his duffel and throws it over his shoulder. “That doesn’t matter. Let’s not think about that, right now! Come on,” he says, gesturing to the door.

He doesn’t wait to see if Seiji follows and peeks into Eugene’s room. “Hey, Bobby, could I get your keys?”

Bobby’s eyebrows furrow. “Why?” he asks carefully. By way of explanation, Nick opens the door wide enough for them to see Seiji standing behind him. Bobby tosses him the keyring, nonplussed. The closing door muffles a stunned laugh.

Nick takes one look at the bags blocking the rear window and tosses Seiji’s bag in the back seat. Back in the dorm, he motions toward Eugene’s door. “We’re going over the plans, if you want to, uh…”

Seiji is already turning away. “I’m going to sleep.”

Nick rolls his eyes. He takes Eugene’s and Bobby’s incredulous looks as he walks into the room, meeting them with a steady, unbothered look of his own.

Eugene is the first to speak. “What the hell?” He sounds more disbelieving than upset.

“What happened to _Seiji can get out of anything_?” Bobby says, and Nick ignores the accusation in his tone.

Nick shoves his hands deep into his pockets and toes at a stain on the flat carpet. He mumbles some half-baked excuse about semantics, unable to meet their eyes but not ashamed of what he did.

“So—wait,” Eugene starts. “Is this really happening? Nick, he’s not really going with us, is he? I feel like we’ve had this conversation before.”

Seiji, standing lonely on the piste.

“Yes,” Nick says, voice firm. He looks up to the both of them. They look confused, more than anything. “He isn’t going home for vacation and—even if he did, he’d be alone. He was going to either be alone here or alone at his house and I—we can’t leave him here by himself for all of break. He’s our teammate, y’know? Maybe we can’t spend Christmas with him, but we should do _something—_ ”

Bobby holds up a quelling hand. “Hey, it’s okay,” he says, sympathy ruffling his brow. “We understand. We’re just confused.”

“Yeah, how’d you get him to agree, like, willingly?” Eugene asks.

Nick chews on his lower lip and shrugs. “I said please.”

His friends blink at him, then at each other, then back at him. “Okay…” Bobby mumbles, drawing out the _o._ “We’ll have to adjust the plans, then.”

“On the bright side,” Eugene says, making room for Nick when he hops onto the bed, “we’ll have more money to throw around. He’s gonna add to the pool, right?”

Nick makes grabby-hands for the itinerary-bible, which Eugene passes him. “We can figure that out tomorrow. Our plans shouldn’t change too much, though, I don’t think,” he tells them, flipping through pages about expenses and schedules. “Our driving rotations will be a little shorter, if there’s a fourth shift.”

He pauses, considering. “Do you think Seiji can drive?”

“Like actually? Or legally?” Bobby asks. He doesn’t answer. Bobby shrugs.

“We’ll cross that bridge later,” Nick mumbles. “I didn’t plan for, like, places to stop for dinner or gas or anything, so we’ll have to play it by ear.”

“You planned every minute of this trip, but didn’t plan for potty breaks?” Eugene snorts.

Nick shrugs. “I didn’t plan for Seiji, either.”

“Are we meeting here or in the parking lot?” Bobby asks, hopping off the desk to join them on the bed.

“We can meet at the Prius after—”

“Why’d you say it like that? Why’d you say Prius like that, Nick?”

“Huh?”

“I drive a Prius, Nick, and that Prius is gonna take your ungrateful ass across five states for ten hours so you can chase an imaginary birdman. There’s nothing wrong with my Prius.”

Nick gives Bobby a long, flat look. “We can meet at the Prius after dismissal. I’ll have to collect Seiji, so you guys don’t have to wait for me,” he says. “We good here?”

“I can’t believe Seiji’s coming,” Eugene says. Nick rolls his eyes.

“Cool. Let’s go grab some grub. Salmon and lentils? Protein and grain?”

Eugene is nearly to the door. “Already there.”

The lights are off when he gets back to his room. Seiji’s laptop casts his face in a dim white glow. Their eyes meet over the top of his screen. Seiji looks away first. The white jacket that had been crumpled on the floor before is gone, and Seiji’s hair is damp from a shower.

They say nothing to each other as Nick gets ready for bed. As he settles under his covers, he mutters to his wall, “You’ll have fun.”

His response is a noncommittal grunt, but it’s better than none at all.


	2. the roadtrip pt. 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the gang's got a long 9 hour trip ahead of them

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ngl this is mostly ooc fluff and filler bc fuck you this is my fic i can do whatever i want

“You’re stalling,” Nick says, tapping his foot impatiently.

Seiji has spent three agonizing minutes checking every drawer in the dresser and corner of their closet. “If I’m to spend three days with you, I want to make sure I have everything I need.”

Nick groans, but holds his tongue. Finally, Seiji closes the last drawer and follows him out of the dorm. He keeps a step behind, making sure Seiji is in his line of sight. Seiji puts up with it for about three seconds. “You don’t need to be _herding_ me like a dog,” he says.

“What, I should leave you alone so you can flake on us? No, no, no.”

Seiji opens his mouth to argue, then shakes his head. This somehow feels like a loss. Nick doesn’t have time to dwell on it.

“Hurry along, chitlens,” Bobby says, waving them closer to his Prius. “There’s monsters to be hunted.”

“He’s not—” Nick starts, then decides to pick his battles.

They pile into the hatchback: Bobby driving, Eugene in the passenger seat (despite Nick’s distressed protestations), and the freshmen in the back. They’re on the road, thanks to Bobby’s, ahem, _expeditious_ technique, in no time at all.

“Holy shit,” Eugene says, knuckles white around the assist handle. “Who signed off on your license? I’m calling the DMV.”

“Hey, I’ll have you know I passed the permit test with flying colors,” Bobby says as he switches lanes without a blinker, cutting off a disgruntled BMW that honks at them—in Nick’s opinion—more than necessary.

Nick swallows his laughter at Seiji’s generally nonplussed reaction. He hadn’t thought to warn the poor boy of the dangers of putting Bobby behind the wheel. For his sake, Nick leans over the center console.

“I’d like to make it there in one piece, if it’s possible, Bobby,” he says.

Bobby pushes him back with a hand to the face. “Put your seatbelt on!”

“Hands on the wheel!” But he’s laughing, rolling back into his seat and clicking the belt into place.

Bobby doesn’t slow down, but he quits driving like a maniac, and Nick praises the small miracles. Eugene’s grip doesn’t relax.

They filled the tank yesterday and packed snacks for the road, so they’re good to drive for maybe two hours before absolutely having to stop. Bobby, Eugene, and Nick had planned to all take a shift behind the wheel at least once each on the way up and the way back. A roughly nine-hour trip equates to three-hour shifts, pulling off when they switch to top up the tank. This way, they could avoid fatigue and related problems.

Including Seiji means another shift, if he can drive, and more funding, but that nobody can lay back and take a nap in the backseat if they need to.

“You can drive, right?” Nick asks him, maneuvering his backpack between his legs. One last briefing of their plan couldn’t hurt.

Seiji side-eyes him. “Yes, I can drive.”

“Good. Everyone is pulling their own weight here,” Nick says, pulling the itinerary out. “Bobby, did you put the address in the GPS, yet?”

“Affirmative, captain.”

“Where is it that we’re going?” Seiji asks, his brow wrinkling.

Eugene turns, measuring him up. “You agreed to come without knowing where we’re going?”

“Admittedly, it was a… lapse in judgment,” he concedes, but holds Eugene’s look. Seiji glances at Nick. “You said West Virginia?”

“Yes. Point Pleasant, West Virginia,” Nick says innocently enough, handing Seiji a length of rope to see if he’ll hang himself with it.

Seiji hesitates. “What’s in Point Pleasant, West Virginia?” he asks, and, in terms of gratification, it’s like crack.

“Oh, honey,” Bobby says, breathing a sympathetic, but long-suffering sigh.

Nick grins at him. “I’m so glad you asked,” he says, and Seiji’s face drops. “We are taking the adventure of a lifetime, undertaking a feat few have been brave enough to endure. A hunt! An improbable, nay impossible chase for that elusive creature. That which disaster follows. The winged fright of the night! The—uh, it’s—Mothman. We’re go—We’re looking for the Mothman.”

Seiji blinks.

Bobby shoots Nick a look in the rearview. “I told you not to open with that. Nobody will take us seriously if you keep saying we’re hunting Mothman,” he says.

“I thought it was good,” Eugene mumbles, twisting to dap him up from the front seat.

“When you said West Virginia,” Seiji says, having rediscovered himself, “I thought you meant a cabin in Blue Ridge. Or a trip to Camden Park.”

Eugene pipes up like it hadn’t occurred to him, “Can we go to Camden Park?” Bobby shushes him gently.

“Mothman,” Seiji says, like it’s the most ridiculous thing he has ever heard, but makes perfect sense. “You’re hunting Mothman.”

Nick’s hackles raise. “There’s enough eyewitness evidence for there to be reasonable doubt that his existence isn’t just mass hysteria,” he says, defending against an argument Seiji hasn’t made.

Seiji tilts a look at him. “You believe in aliens, too, don’t you?” he asks, incredulous.

“What? No, I don’t believe in aliens,” Nick scoffs. “I’m not an idiot.”

“Hey!” Eugene says, pointing a baselessly accusatory finger at Nick. Nick throws his hands up in surrender. “They’re out there, heard? Watch your mouth.”

Seiji glances between them all guardedly. “Is this some sort of joke?” His gaze settles on Nick. “Am I really to believe you’re spending your Christmas vacation and hundreds of dollars on, what, hunting cryptids?”

It’s Nick’s turn to blink. “I wouldn’t joke about the Mothman,” he says firmly, meeting Seiji’s challenge with equal strength.

“We really are,” Bobby cuts in, glancing at them both in the rearview. Always the peacekeeper. “We aren’t trying to mess with you or anything.”

Seiji still doesn’t look convinced. Nick huffs and rolls his eyes. He has never, not once, played a prank on or made Seiji the butt of any joke. Really, he has never given Seiji any reason to distrust him. It’s annoying that he refuses to believe in Nick.

“Here,” Nick says, offering him the itinerary. “See for yourself. Everything’s in there: schedules, info on the area, where we’re staying, what we’ll eat—hell, even when we’ll shit. Take it.”

He studies Nick warily but takes the journal and leafs through it. Within it is every piece of intelligence they need to make this trip worthwhile. Nick taped whole Wikipedia articles and archived documents to pages and squeezed notes into the margins. Tourist spots are detailed by Nick’s own hand and organized by how important they are for their goal. Several pages are dedicated to just the museum.

Seiji stops on the two-page spread of a map Nick had torn from a tourism pamphlet and littered with marker. He looks up at Nick. “So, this is serious to you,” he says rather dumbly.

“ _Yes_ ,” Nick sighs. “Are you done being suspicious? This isn’t some elaborate prank just to fuck with you. We were going to come on this trip, anyway, whether you came or not.” _Not everything is about you_ , Nick leaves out.

By no measure is Seiji conceited; arrogant, maybe, but his confidence is reasonable given who he is and what he’s done. Nick is not so disillusioned by Seiji to think his behavior is the result of an inflated ego. The only other person that makes Seiji so reflexively defensive, as far as Nick knows, is Aiden. He’s rather amiable with others, up to a point. No, this behavior isn’t because of who Seiji is, but because of who Nick is.

Seiji seems to accept this reasoning, though, and continues looking through the itinerary. Nick watches him, suddenly self-conscious of himself. That journal is a monument to an embarrassing obsession Nick has kept relatively hush-hush and could easily be turned against him and used as roast material.

Nick waits with bated breath for Seiji to—well, do anything other than consume the proudest thing Nick has ever created that won’t be seen by anybody outside this car. Seiji flips through the clear sleeves of printed pictures unbothered and unaware of Nick’s internal struggle.

Finally, his eyes flick up to Nick. “You know they make digital programs for you to do this on,” he says.

Nick grabs at the journal. “If you’re just going to be a bitch, give it back.”

Seiji holds it tighter. “No, I’m not trying to criticize you,” he says, now choosing his words carefully. “I’m impressed, actually. It’s… very thorough.”

Nick’s hand falls to his lap. “I’ve had a lot of time to put it together.”

“How long?” Bobby asks. Eugene is twisted in his seat to pay attention. Nick hasn’t told them how this all started, either.

The ceiling of Bobby’s Prius is suddenly very interesting. “Uh, a little less than a year. That’s not important, right now. You guys want to go over this one more time?” Nick says, taking the itinerary from Seiji’s unresisting grip. He must have looked his fill.

Eugene groans softly, and Bobby smacks his arm. “Yes. It’s important to be prepared,” he says meaningfully.

Seiji is the only one who doesn’t have the benefit of weeks of planning. Nick had spent days organizing every last detail with Eugene and Bobby, considering timeframes and budgets. It was damn near the most effort he has put into anything other than fencing. It is also absolutely necessary that Seiji is privy to these plans. They have a lot of ground to cover in a finite amount of time.

“First of all,” Nick says, pointing at Seiji, “it isn’t our entire Christmas vacation. We’ll be back at school by the twenty-third, and everyone will be where they need to be by Christmas Eve.”

He flips to the driving schedule, though he doesn’t need the itinerary much at all; he has it all memorized. “We were going to take three-hour shifts between the three of us, but since you’re here we can add another shift and shorten them to…”

“About two and a half hours,” Bobby helps.

“Yes, thank you. We’ll pull over, grab some snacks, take a piss, and fill the tank when we switch. Bada bing, bada boom. Taking traffic and pit stops into account, we should get to Ohio at about one in the morning—”

“Ohio?” Seiji cuts in. “I thought you were going to West Virginia.”

Nick huffs. “Point Pleasant is on the border, we’re just going to stay in a motel on the _other side_ of it. The Super 8—”

“We’ll be staying in a _motel_?”

“ _Yes_ , we’ll be staying in a motel. Are you going to keep cutting me off?” Nick glares at him, waits. Seiji presses his lips together, but keeps quiet. “As I was saying, The Super 8 motel is within viewing distance of the Silver Memorial Bridge and only a five-minute drive from Point Pleasant.

“We sleep in tomorrow because we deserve it, grab a late breakfast, and do a little exploring. Important stops include but are not limited to: the Mothman Museum and the Coffee Grinder. And, in true tourist form, we can do a little shopping, too.”

“Hallelujah,” Bobby mutters.

“Everything is within walking distance, so that makes it easier. On Sunday, we wake up at eight and check out McClintic Wildlife Management Area. Uh, there’s been a lot of sightings around there,” he adds for Seiji. He conveniently leaves out the part of their plan that involves camping. “On Monday, we do whatever we want until we leave. You get all that?”

Seiji nods. “Good,” Nick says. “Any questions?”

“Do blind people dream?” Eugene asks, scratching his jaw.

“I meant relevant questions.”

“Oh. Did you pack Fritos?” Nick digs a snack bag out of his backpack and tosses it over the center console. “Thanks, man.”

“Wave good-bye to Connecticut, boys,” Bobby says, wiggling his fingers to the _Connecticut State Line_ sign.

-

They run out of petty conversation after about an hour. That is, Nick, Bobby, and Eugene do. Seiji keeps to himself, only speaking when spoken to and when Nick knocks his knee with his own by accident.

Silence lapses for a moment too long and they collectively declare it boring as hell.

“Find a podcast, Gene. Something educational, maybe,” Bobby says, digging the auxiliary cord out of the glove compartment and dropping it in Eugene’s lap. “I would like to hold on to the few braincells I have left.”

“Noooo podcast,” Nick says and lurches forward in his seat, ignoring Seiji’s indignant look when their knees—once again—collide. “They’re fucking _bor_ ing. We’re playing _ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall_.”

“No,” is Seiji’s knee-jerk reaction. Nick makes a face at him.

Eugene scratches his jaw. “Is that really a game? I thought it was more like a sing-along thing.”

“I am _not_ going to be trapped in a car, listening to you scream _ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall_ in the backseat for nine hours,” Bobby says, making a gesture with his hand to emphasize his point. “No, okay? I’m not even old enough to drink.”

Nick shakes his head. “You don’t have to be—fine, forget it.”

“How would you even _win_ that?” Eugene asks.

“ _Okay_ ,” Nick grumbles. “We’ll listen to a stupid podcast, whatever.”

Bobby smiles at the road, looking supremely satisfied with himself. “Yay.”

“But at least keep it relevant. Play one about the Mothman.”

Bobby’s face falls. “Aw.”

Eugene cracks open another bottle of Powerade, despite Bobby’s warnings, and says, “Why don’t you just tell us about Mothman? Aren’t you an expert?”

Nick shrugs. “I’m no cryptozoologist, but—”

“Is that a real thing?” Seiji asks, arching a skeptical brow at him and speaking without for the first time.

“Yes, Mr. Interrupts-Me-A-Lot. That’s a real thing,” Nick says. He looks back to Eugene and Bobby. “I’m no cryptozoologist, but I can tell you what I know.

“It all started on a cold November night, nineteen sixty-six—”

“I take it back,” Bobby cuts in. “I take it back, put on a stupid podcast.”

“No, no—I’ll take it seriously,” Nick laughs. “Uh, I don’t know where the legend first came from. Every culture has its flood, you know? But, um—I’ll just start with Point Pleasant, since that’s where we’re going.”

Eugene twists around to face him, Bobby glances at him in the rearview, and even Seiji tilts his head to listen, though he’s trying to hide it. Nick thinks they’re just indulging him, but he can’t account for Seiji’s attention. Bored curiosity, maybe.

“In sixty-six, these two couples drove into the woods to get nasty and found this abandoned factory that made dynamite or bullets or something during World War II. One of the women saw this figure walking by the building, but it wasn’t a person. It had these huge shapes over its shoulders, like wings, a head with no neck, and these… glowing red eyes.”

He pauses, gauging their reactions. Eugene is chewing his chips a little slower, a shallow wrinkle between his eyebrows, but they’re otherwise unfazed. Seiji looks out the window.

“She’s the only one that saw it, the others didn’t see anything, but they decided to drive home, anyway. On the way, the thing came back, but it was using those huge wings to fly, following behind the car and making this high-pitched screech,” he tells them, sweeping his arms out like wings. Eugene has stopped chewing.

“It keeps up with them, even when they’re driving a hundred miles an hour down the road. Then, it passes them and flies off into the night.” Seiji snorts. Nick turns to him. “What? You think it sounds fake?”

Seiji looks at him coolly. “I think that that’s hard to believe,” he says.

Nick shrugs. “That’s what they thought, too. They went out again the next day to make sure it wasn’t, like, a big bird or something, and they saw it walking through a field, wings and glowing eyes and all.”

“Bullshit,” Eugene says from the front.

“They went to the sheriff.”

“And he just took their word for it?”

Bobby glances back. “I can respect that they went to make sure they saw what they saw.”

“I don’t think a word of what you said was true,” Seiji says. “There’s no way.”

Nick tilts an eyebrow at him. “Just like there’s no way you would ever go on vacation with us?” Seiji narrows his eyes but doesn’t say anything. Tastes good. “They saw the Mothman.”

Seiji rolls his eyes and turns back to the window.

-

“Listen, if we don’t pull over _right now_ , I’m gonna burst like a damn grape,” Eugene says, crossing and uncrossing his legs. His arms are wrapped tightly around his middle.

Bobby switches lanes. “The next exit isn’t for ten miles!”

“You have three bottles up there,” Nick says, leaning over the center console and pointing.

Bobby shoves Nick back—or tries to. “If you pee in a bottle in my car, Eugene, so help me God—”

“I gotta go!” Eugene whines. Seiji white-knuckles the overhead handle as Bobby pushes ninety. “I’ll piss out the window if I have to!”

“You’ll have to wait ten miles!” Bobby zooms past a semi. “I told you not to have those Powerade!”

“I’m sorry, was I just supposed to dehydrate!?”

Nick leans over the center console, again. “Listen, Eugene. It’ll be okay. Just don’t think about waterfalls… or rain… or, like, leaky faucets.”

“Oh nooo,” Eugene moans, folding forward.

Bobby elbows Nick in the throat, and he falls back into his seat with choked laughter. “Think about deserts, or—or—” Eugene cuts him off with a pained noise.

Against all odds, Eugene holds it in long enough for them to pull into a gas station at the nearest exit. They need to fill the tank, anyway, so it works out. Eugene bolts for the restroom before they’re even parked.

“I got it,” Nick says when he spots Bobby glancing between the pump and the convenience store. He pulls his wallet out of his pocket. “Forty on pump nine, ‘kay? Grab me a snack?” He hands over the appropriate funds.

He picks up the nozzle when the screen lights up and puts it in the tank, watching the numbers tick up at an agonizing pace. With nothing better to do, he leans against the flank of the car and looks around. The station is mostly dead, except for the few rigs behind the building, but the air hums with the nearby highway traffic. Gasoline, sharp and overwhelming, stings his nose.

The sights, sounds, and smells shouldn’t be so interesting, but this is the furthest he’s been from home. He’d never even left Connecticut before, and, as thoroughly planned as this trip was, Nick hadn’t expected to take it so soon. Bobby had asked if he wanted to do something before Christmas and he had just enough money saved from cleaning Coach Joe’s ballroom.

No better time than the present.

Nick spies Seiji on his phone in the backseat, a solitary creature. He’s not sure why he bothers—it’s probably the same reason he’s always compelled to annoy Seiji—but he crosses his arms over the window across from him and leans into the car.

“Having fun, yet?” he asks.

“No,” Seiji says, without feeling.

Nick blows out a short, amused breath. “We just haven’t gotten to the good part, the real meat of it,” he promises. He squints at the sun as a dark gray cloud passes in front of it.

Seiji doesn’t look up from his phone. “You keep saying something to that effect. Do you ever plan to deliver?”

Nick stares at him, chewing on his lower lip, long enough that Seiji looks up. “This is what teenagers do, you know. I know that being a kid is foreign to you,” he teases, a smile toying at his lips.

“Teenagers waste money on frivolous trips chasing fairytales?” Seiji counters, tilting an eyebrow.

“They do dumb shit,” Nick says, lowering his voice like he’s sharing a secret. “And they have fun while they do it.”

Seiji pauses, sizing him up. Then, he turns back to his phone. He has this way of ending a conversation with a look that drives Nick mad.

Bobby walks out of the store only a minute later, Eugene following behind with a bladder now empty. He tosses a bag of Chex Mix into Nick’s chest and climbs into the passenger’s side. Nick will feel a little better with Eugene behind the wheel. He clicks the gas cap back into place and slips into the backseat.

-

“So, what is he?” Bobby asks when they’re back on the highway. “Mothman, I mean. Is he even a moth? Is he a demon? A dinosaur?”

“Fake?” Seiji adds with a pointed look. Nick pulls a face at him, but refuses to dignify that with a response. Eugene makes a rude gesture at a car that cuts him off.

Nick scratches the back of his neck. “Uh, I don’t know what he is. There’s a few theories, but how can we really be sure, you know?”

“Indeed,” Seiji mutters drily.

Nick ignores him. Bobby asks, “What do you believe, then?”

“I don’t know, I think he’s just an animal. We discover new species all the time; I don’t think that’s too far-fetched. Maybe he’s the last of his kind, like Godzilla,” Nick says.

Seiji gives him a long look. “You don’t believe in Godzilla, too, do you?”

Of course not. Godzilla was born from movies. There have never been any Godzilla sightings, and those would be hard to miss. Nick makes a dismissive gesture. “I was just using him as an example.”

“That’s not an answer.”

Nick rolls his eyes, but Bobby saves him from saying something that might (but probably wouldn’t) hurt Seiji’s feelings. “And he lives in West Virginia?” Bobby asks.

Eugene snorts. “Mothman can fly to Vegas or, like, Cancun, and he decides to stay in Appalachia? Couldn’t be me.”

“Hey, it’s almost heaven, West Virginia,” Nick says, avoiding an indignant swipe from Bobby. “He’s been spotted outside of West Virginia. There’s been sightings in Chicago”—he thumbs through pages of notes—”and Moscow. The last sighting, apparently, was in twenty-sixteen.”

“Wait, and it’s the same one from the sixties? He’s been alive and… what, fully-grown for more than fifty years?” Eugene asks with a skeptical brow.

“Well, I don’t—”

“Pokes a few holes in your _he’s just an animal, the last of his kind_ hypothesis,” Seiji comments.

“I didn’t say it was a perfect theory!” Nick says, pulling another face at him. “But it’s the most realistic. What, are you more convinced he’s a demon? Or a dinosaur?”

“I’m not convinced it exists,” Seiji counters, crossing his arms. “Four people say they saw a monster with glowing eyes that could fly faster than a speeding car and you take their word as gospel?”

“Ah, have a little faith, Seiji,” Bobby says amiably.

Nick grins. “Yeah, have a little faith, Seiji.” Seiji narrows his eyes at Nick, but makes a gesture for him to continue.

Nick does so, “there’s also the theory that he’s an alien.”

Eugene claps his hands and rubs them together, ignoring Bobby’s warnings about hands and wheels. “ _Now,_ we’re talkin’,” he says with a devilish smile. He straightens the car and nods to Nick in the rearview. “Alright, I’m ready. Lay it on me.”

“That—That’s it.” He turns the book, opened to the correct page of notes, and shows him the tiny entry. Eugene visibly deflates, frowning at the road.

Seiji leans over. “Still more likely than him being the last of his kind.”

“Now, you’re just trying to be a bitch,” Nick says, though he’s trying not to smile. “You believe in aliens now, huh?”

Seiji tips his chin up in that way that puts Nick below his nose, knowing just how much that agitates him. “I think it’s more likely that aliens exist than that your Mothman exists.”

“He’s not _my_ anythi—”

“Gang,” Eugene says, throwing a fist bump over his shoulder that Seiji only stares at, puzzled.

“No, no, wait,” Nick sputters, making wild gestures with his hands and twisting to face Seiji. “You don’t believe in aliens. You said _E.T._ was the most unrealistic movie you’d ever seen!”

“Because it is,” he says with a nonchalant shrug that still comes off as regal. “He made the bicycle fly. He can’t defy the laws of physics solely because he’s an alien; I can’t suspend my disbelief that much.”

Nick gapes, and the conversation quickly degenerates into an argument about Seiji’s coldest takes on movies.

\--

The sun is slinking toward the horizon as the gas light blinks on. They pull into a Love’s station somewhere in Pennsylvania off the 76, Nick declaring it the halfway point.

Seiji makes for the store once Eugene decides on a pump, barely pausing to check for other cars. Eugene bolts after him, having consumed another two Powerades in the last circuit. Nick checks that Bobby’s filling the tank and starts for the store.

“Grab me a snack?” Bobby calls to him.

“Sure,” Nick says. “Don’t leave me here.”

“Leave you here, you said?” Bobby says, cheeky.

“N—well, yes, but there was a ‘don’t’ before it,” Nick says, biting back a grin.

Despite its rather nondescript location on a barren road beside a highway exit, the Love’s is pretty nice. Fridges stocked with drinks and cold foods, rows of snacks, racks of souvenir shirts, and aisles of candy. The bathroom tiles sparkle, and the soap dispensers actually have soap. All around, a pretty nice joint.

Nick finds Seiji leisurely browsing the souvenir shirts, pushing hanger after hanger aside. He’s momentarily stunned at seeing Seiji do something as mundane as shop for souvenirs, but soon spots the analytical look in Seiji’s eyes, like he’s a scientist studying wildlife. To Seiji, he’s a scientist studying the most perplexing creature: normal people. Nick saddles up beside him, because he can’t stop himself, pulling a shirt off the hanger and holding it out.

“ _I’m on island time_ ,” he reads, squinting at the glaring orange color. He glances at Seiji. “How many of these do you think they’ve sold? Probably twelve million, right?”

No reaction. He puts it back and pulls out another. “ _Straight outta Harrisburg_. That seems a little problematic.” Still, no reaction. He puts the shirt back.

Seiji pulls a shirt off the rack, smoothing it out and wordlessly holding it for Nick to see. In bold, purple typeface across the chest, it reads, _FOR HIRE_.

It shocks a laugh out of Nick, sharp and loud. He swears he sees the edges of Seiji’s lips tick up when he turns to put the shirt back, but that level expression is back in a second. It still sends a strange thrill through Nick’s body.

Nick pulls out another shirt, a white one with the words _two-sweater_ in bold black typeface and two arrows pointing up and down. He looks from the shirt to Seiji and back. “I can’t believe they’re selling this here,” he says.

“Oh, shit!” Eugene says, strutting out of the bathroom with hands still glistening with water. He snatches the shirt from Nick’s unresisting hands. “I’m getting this.”

“All yours,” he mutters with a grin. He jerks his chin back at Seiji, eyeing the fridges. “You getting anything to drink?”

Seiji shrugs and pulls a glass door open between them, plucking a water off the shelf and letting the door swing shut again. Then, unceremoniously, he turns away and wanders down another aisle, away from Nick. It feels like a petty thing to do, so Nick rolls his eyes.

Sometimes, it feels like Nick might actually be getting somewhere with Seiji. A moment of peace will pass with no ugly comments or nasty looks. They’ll achieve some measure of amiability, and they’ll start to feel almost like friends. Then, something will shatter the moment like glass. Usually Seiji. But that has been the trend for the six months since they started living together. For all that Seiji does to piss him off, Nick wishes it would last.

He steps into the line once he’s grabbed what he needs, Seiji at his back. He pulls out his wallet while he waits, checking to see how much money he has. Two twenties sit folded within it, laughing at him. He meant to be a little more frugal, but he hadn’t had much spending money to begin with.

He pulls one of the twenties out when the cashier scans his products, because he’s always willing to spend what little he has on Bobby. Before he can hand over the bill, Seiji beats him to it, sliding his credit card into the reader. Nick stares at him, the extra beeps of the scanner barely registering.

“What are you doing?” he asks, dumbfounded.

Seiji side-eyes him. “Wouldn’t want you to go bankrupt buying cookies,” he says by way of explanation. Of course, even Seiji’s generosity would be backhanded.

Before Nick can think of something to say, Seiji has swiped the receipt and his own snacks and is headed for the door. Nick quickly thanks the cashier, grabs his own shit, and chases after Seiji.

He can’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t get him laughed at, so he tells Seiji, “Thank you.” Seiji gives him a lingering, unreadable look, but he’s the first to look away.

Bobby and Eugene have already taken up post in the backseat, and Nick spots Seiji hesitating as they near the Prius. Nick bolts for the driver’s side, making the decision that Seiji’s considering for him.

“You’ll be the anchor,” Nick says, ducking into the seat. Seiji only nods. Nick tosses the tea and Oreos he—well, _Seiji_ bought Bobby into the back seat.

“Thanks, dad,” Bobby says, tearing the plastic open.

-

It’s almost half-past seven by the time they get back onto the highway. The pale yellow of the sunset is fading into a muted blue, distorted by the colorless clouds, and Bobby and Eugene are falling asleep in the backseat.

Nick voiced his amazement at their laziness, but Bobby threw a piece of trash at him and told him they were the ones that had driven for over two hours. They’re currently dozing together, Bobby stretched across the seat with his legs thrown over Eugene’s and Eugene’s head leaning over the back of the seat at an odd angle. Nick takes extra care to avoid potholes and swerving.

Seiji scrolls through his phone, as he’s been doing the entire trip. That is, when he’s not staring out the window or mocking Nick. On the screen, Nick can catch glimpses of videos and scoring records. He bites his tongue.

Seiji cautiously glances back at the sleeping boys in the back, then pulls his notebook from the bag by Eugene’s legs. He has long since gotten over writing in his fencing journal where Nick can see and teasing him lost its luster a while ago; a logical consequence of cohabitating for six months, but Nick is shocked for a different reason and he can’t keep his mouth shut this time.

“You _brought_ that?”

Seiji gives him a look that tells him the question is ridiculous, which Nick heartily disagrees with. They’re going on _vacation_ and Seiji won’t even give it a day’s rest, but… that’s actually pretty on brand for him.

Nick shakes his head in disbelief, thoughts shifting somewhere else. “Writing another diary entry about Jesse?”

Like usual, Seiji doesn’t take the bait. “Yes,” he says simply.

Nick cranes his neck to see, but, even if he didn’t have to watch the road, his visibility is shot. “How do you have anything else to write about him? The season’s over, anyway. You can’t see him compete.”

Seiji scribbles on the paper. “One of his teammates records video blogs—”

“Vlogs.”

“—yes, vlogs of their practices and posts them on YouTube.”

Nick studies him across the center console, both in awe of and concerned about his commitment. Mostly concerned. If it weren’t Seiji, that would be borderline stalker behavior. “I’m not going to try to convince you again to let loose—”

“Yes, you will.”

“— _today_ , but maybe give yourself a break,” Nick says, glancing between Seiji and the road. “You killed it this season. The least you could do for yourself is to pause”—he looks pointedly at the journal—”your obsessing.”

Seiji doesn’t look too enthused by that, so Nick says, “Or redirect it into something more positive.”

That gives Seiji pause, and he closes his journal. “What do you suggest?”

Nick jerks his chin at the notebook. “What’s in there about me?” His eyebrows bounce.

“This again?” Seiji says, scoffing and shaking his head. “I’m not going to tell you.”

“I’m going to keep asking.” Seiji rolls his eyes, and Nick continues, “Hey, you can’t tell someone you wrote in your diary about them and expect them to not be curious.”

“I _didn’t_ tell you,” Seiji says. “You’re nosy.”

Nick rolls his eyes. The sky darkens around them, until their visibility is limited to their headlamps’ range. Seiji doesn’t offer any info, but he doesn’t go back to obsessing.

“What were you writing, just now?” Nick asks, prioritizing the most immediate curiosity. Then, he asks, “What more could you have to write about Jesse?”

To the second question, he says nothing. To the first, he says, “He’s practicing right-handed.”

“Isn’t he always practicing to face right-handed people?”

“No, he’s practicing with his right hand,” Seiji clarifies.

Nick’s gaze cuts to him. “Huh,” he says, not knowing what to think at first. “So, he’s getting bored?”

Seiji blows a short breath that sounds like a laugh. “I hardly believe winning gets boring,” he says quietly. “I don’t know what this means. He’s too smart to try competing with his non-dominant hand. Not even Robert—”

Eugene rouses just long enough to yell at them, “No obsessing!”

Nick bites back a laugh, and Seiji—shockingly—does as he’s told. He sets his notebook in his lap, glancing to the two in the backseat.

“I’ve never gone on vacation before,” he admits with forced nonchalance. Nick can see every line of his body loaded with tension.

“You went to France.”

“That was business.” Nick stops himself before he can roll his eyes.

“So, you’ve never gone anywhere for fun?” Seiji shakes his head. Nick sits up a bit straighter. “Never? What about when you were younger? Trips to grandma’s?”

Seiji shakes his head. “Not that I can remember. I don’t know any of my extended family.”

Nick thinks that’s unbearably sad. “Well, we’re your family now,” he says, referring to the sleeping boys in the back. “Whether you like it or not. And we’re taking a family vacation.”

Seiji gazes out the window. For the first time ever, Nick may have left him speechless. It feels better to make him laugh.

“And what’s more fun than cryptid-hunting with family?” Nick grins at the road.

Having snapped out of his speechlessness, Seiji rolls his eyes. “I could think of a few things.”

“How would you know? Have you done them?” Nick challenges playfully. Seiji glares at him, without heat. Nick’s cheeks are starting to hurt. “Have you done anything?”

“I didn’t tell you that so you could mock me.”

Nick drags his tongue over his lower lip. “Then, why did you tell me?”

Seiji blinks. He looks out his window. “I don’t know.”

Nick reaches across the center console to give him a good-natured arm punch. “Hey, I’m just messing with you. You don’t need to get all mopey.”

“I don’t mope.”

“Yes, you do. You mope and you pout and you brood. Especially when I beat you at something.”

“You’ve never beaten me at anything.”

“That’s not true. I’ve gotten touches on you in practice, remember?”

Seiji gives him a flat look. “You lose every bout. Landing a few touches doesn’t qualify as beating me.” When Nick only smiles like he knows the truth, Seiji says, “It doesn’t!”

Nick’s eyebrows bounce. “Yeah, _oh_ -kay,” he snorts.

“And I don’t mope. Or pout.” Now, he’s crossing his arms and looking petulantly childish. Nick almost laughs, but that might be counterproductive.

“Yes, you do, and you make this face.” Nick makes an exaggerated pout, jutting out his bottom lip, drawing his eyebrows together, and making cartoonish sad eyes at Seiji.

Seiji does the closest thing to a gape. He blows a short breath through his nose suspiciously close to a laugh and says, “I have never made a face like that. Not in my life.”

“You made that face last night when I so graciously invited you into our plans. God, you’re so ungrateful.”

“Invited! I was given no choice on the matter.”

Nick side-eyes him. “I don’t have any authority over you. You could have said no and stayed at King’s Row at any time, but you didn’t.” Seiji blinks once, twice at him. “So, what does that say about you?”

“You stuck to me like a leech as soon as school ended, then herded me to the parking lot like I was a sheep. I was not given a choice.”

“I think a well-placed punch in the face would have gotten rid of me,” Nick says with a shrug.

Seiji is quiet for a long moment before relenting, “I’m an idiot.” He doesn’t sound too broken up about it.

“Mhm.”

Seiji rolls his eyes and shakes his head. “You’re insufferable.”

Nick bites back a small smile. “But you’re having fun.”

Seiji gazes through the windshield.

\--

Nick slams the door and stretches the ache of immobility from his muscles. A few vertebrae pop, joining the symphony his stomach is singing.

When he opens the back door, Bobby falls back, jolting awake when the seatbelt catches him. In his panic, he kicks his legs and knocks Eugene squarely in the chin. Eugene wakes with a colorful expletive and shoves at Bobby’s feet. They both look to Nick, bleary-eyed and slow.

“Come on. Dinnertime,” Nick says, ruffling Bobby’s curls.

They take their time coming to life, stretching each and every limb. Nick is patient for all of ten seconds before he nods to Seiji, stretching his arms over his head by the passenger’s side. “We’ll grab a table. I gotta piss.”

The sky is dark, but the West Virginian Chipotle they parked in front of is lit up like a football field, spotlights and everything. A direct contrast to how dead it is past the doors. All of the tables are empty, recently wiped down. The few workers waiting until closing are sitting in chairs behind the displays, each with a hand of poker cards. When the bell over the door tinkles, Nick hears arguing over who’s going to serve them.

“You ever eat here?” Nick asks Seiji, who shakes his head.

“I’ll have what you have,” he says, somewhat subdued. Nick pauses, watching him rub at his eyes and wondering at this odd little moment of trust.

“You sure? Wouldn’t want anything to get in the way of your _meal plans_ ,” he teases. Seiji gives him a look telling him he’s not in the mood to play. Nick laughs and gives him a good-natured pat on the back. “We can grab you some coffee when we leave.”

Bobby sidles up beside him halfway through his order, freshly awake and looking hungry. He points at the glass. “Get the green olives. You’ll thank me later,” he says, and Nick does so. “Are you going to order for me, too?”

By the time Nick finishes ordering, he’s about to wet his pants. Bobby notices his jittery legs as they approach the check out, Eugene halfway through ordering his second bowl. “Go,” he tells Nick. “I’ll cover you.”

Nick thanks him and makes a beeline for the restroom without being told twice. The others have claimed a table by the time he’s done, a booth hybrid smack dab in the center of the restaurant. Seiji and Bobby took the chairs, Eugene took the booth. Nick slides in beside him, popping the top off of his bowl. The others were already elbow-deep.

“Guys, we have to say prayer,” Nick says, laughing when Bobby throws a soggy bay leaf at him. Eugene and Seiji don’t even pause.

Mouth full of beef and guac, Eugene pauses to ask, “How far away are we?”

Nick checks their location on his phone. “About two hours. We’re on the last leg, now,” he says, stabbing at his burrito bowl with a fork. “Should be getting there around one, at the latest.”

Bobby groans, rubbing at his neck. “I can’t wait to sleep in a _bed_. Oh, my back is never going to forgive me for this.”

Seiji yawns behind his hand, and Nick kicks him under the table, saying “You can drive the rest of the way, right? I said we can get coffee, but if you can’t cut it, I’ll do it.”

Seiji gives him a dirty look and tells him, “I’m fine. I can drive.”

Nick kicks him again. “You don’t have to act tough. We’re all friends here,” he says.

“I said I’m fine,” Seiji says. _End of discussion_ , he implies. Nick kicks him one more time, for good measure.

“Is that tofu?” Nick asks, eyeing Seiji’s bowl. “I’ve never tried it before.”

Seiji stabs his fork at Nick’s hand when he reaches for the food. “What do you think you’re doing? Were you raised in a barn? You can’t take someone’s food without asking,” he says.

Nick sucks a knuckle that got a real good poke. “If I asked, you would have said no.”

“Yes, that’s the point,” Seiji says, pulling his bowl closer to him. “Now, who’s pouting?”

Eugene points at Seiji with his spoon. “Wait, you got tofu? Over beef? Couldn’t be me.”

Bobby sighs. “Gene, I told you to get the chicken. Eating red meat every day isn’t healthy for you.”

Seiji glances between them and says, “Tofu has no cholesterol and more vitamins than red meat does. Red meat has the B12 and D vitamins we need, but for the sake of my cholesterol I avoid it when I can.”

Eugene blinks, regarding Seiji’s food with new eyes. “No shit,” he says consideringly and rubs his chin. He pauses. “But… But it’s so… boring.”

“It’s an acquired taste,” Seiji agrees.

“Like beer!” Eugene says, now grinning, voice loud in the empty building. Seiji doesn’t look wholly understanding, but he nods along. Nick looks from him to Eugene and back. Bobby does the same, before locking eyes with Nick.

One of the workers leans over the counter and calls, “So, when are you guys going to leave?”

\--

Nick watches, enraptured, as Seiji methodically checks every mirror, adjusts the seat, sets up the air conditioner, then inputs the address in the navigation. By the time he starts the engine, Eugene and Bobby have fallen back asleep in the back seat.

There’s a twenty-four-hour Dunkin Donuts down the street, but the closed drive-thru means one of them will have to go in. Nick volunteers. He gets out of the car before Seiji can fish his credit card out of his wallet and returns a few minutes later, two cups in hand and pocket a little lighter.

“This is me paying you back.” Nick holds Seiji’s coffee out and jokes, “I can’t stand it when you’re nice to me.”

Seiji rolls his eyes and takes a considering sip. His eyebrows scrunch up. “How do you know what I get?”

Lightning flashes and a boom of thunder follows in the distance. Nick squints at the black sky. “A bit of whole milk and one packet of sugar? It’s not exactly DaVinci’s code.” When that doesn’t satisfy Seiji, Nick adds, “You got the same coffee every morning before a comp. I meant to tell you, having caffeine before competing probably wasn’t the smartest.”

Seiji frowns at the road as he merges onto the highway. “It calmed me down,” he says, still sounding out of sorts.

“That doesn’t make any sense.” Nick scowls. To smooth out the lingering wrinkle between Seiji’s eyes, he adds, “We’ve lived together for half a year; is it that hard to believe that I’d pick up on your habits?”

Seiji takes another sip of the coffee. “I guess not,” he says quietly.

Nick makes a dismissive gesture, throwing his feet on the dash. “Besides, I’m sure you’ve figured out all my weird quirks.”

“You fart in your sleep.”

Nick straightens. “I do not!”

“You do. I dread every time the cafeteria serves beans.”

Nick flounders like a fish, not knowing what to say. He would _like_ to deny, deny, deny, but he can’t really be sure what he does in his sleep.

Then the corner of Seiji’s mouth ticks up, for only an instance, and Nick knows he’s been bamboozled. “Asshole,” he mutters through his smile.

“Put your feet down,” Seiji says, sounding light-hearted.

“You’re not my dad,” Nick says, not moving an inch. “And this isn’t even your car.”

Seiji opens his mouth for a snappy retort, but Nick’s phone rings before he can deliver. Nick makes a face at him and checks the caller ID.

“Hey, mom,” he says into the receiver, glancing at the backseat.

“ _Hey, hon. I just got off of work and thought I’d see how you’re doing,”_ she says, voice as soft as the night. “ _Wait, you’re not driving, are you?”_

Seiji gazes through the windshield, pretending he can’t hear.

“No, I’m not driving. How was work?”

“ _Oh, it was alright, I guess. My manager’s still a shithead, but I don’t think that’s curable. I really wish people would start reading the aisle signs, too. Make my job so much easier for me,”_ she says, sounding worse for wear. “ _But enough about me. How’s your trip? I wish you would’ve taken the money.”_

The last time he saw her the weekend before, she had almost begged him to take some two hundred dollars she had saved up. Nick dips his chin against his chest. “Don’t worry about that. I told you I didn’t need it.”

_“Are you there yet?_ ”

Nick fiddles with the vent. “We’ve got two more hours until we get to Point Pleasant. Bobby and our other friend, Eugene, are already asleep.”

“ _I’ll be quiet then, shh,_ ” his mother jokes. Nick chuckles. “ _If they’re asleep, then who’s driving? Are you stopped?_ ”

“Uh, no. Seiji decided to tag along last minute, so he’s behind the wheel right now,” Nick says. Seiji looks like he’s about to argue with him, but goes back to pretending not to listen. “You remember Seiji, right?”

“ _Ah, the cute roommate_ ,” his mother says with knowing familiarity.

Seiji’s eyebrows lift, if only a fraction, and Nick starts. “Mom—Sh—Please,” he stumbles, heat rushing to his face.

Her mother breathes a dramatic, static-y gasp and drops her voice down to a whisper, though it makes no difference. “ _Oh, no. Did he hear me?_ ”

Seiji takes a too-casual sip of his coffee. Nick runs his hand over his face, hoping the dark can hide the stain on his cheeks. “No, he didn’t. Don’t sweat it. Are you home, yet?” he asks.

“ _One stop away. You didn’t forget anything before you left, right? You have your little book, your wallet, enough shirts, your phone—_ _well, of course you have your phone_ _—_ ”

A smile tugs at Nicks lips. “Yeah, I have everything. You don’t have to mother me so much; I’m a big boy,” he says, not that upset about it.

“ _I’m never going to stop mothering you, Nick, and you’re just going to have to accept that,_ ” she says. “ _Ugh, I don’t mean to make this about me, but I’m so happy you’re finally going on this trip. You’ve been planning this for, what, a year? You tell Bobby and Eugene I said_ hello _, you hear?_ ”

“Yeah, I hear you, mom.”

A man speaks through an intercom on her end. “ _Oh, this is my stop_. _You ate dinner, right?”_

“We stopped at ten. You better eat before you get to bed, too.”

“ _Now, who’s mothering who_?” Nick sinks into his seat, smiling despite his best efforts. He loves his mother. “ _So, when will you be back in the Nutmeg State? Before Christmas, I hope. I already bought the chicken._ ”

“We’ll be back at school the twenty-third. Should be home by the twenty-fourth. I’m serious, get something to eat.”

“ _Alright! At least let me get my shoes off, first._ ” He hears her shut the front door and turn the lock. “ _I’m going to go, okay? You’ll call me when you wake up?_ ”

Nick tries not to feel disappointed. “Of course. Love you, bye.”

The car is quiet when Nick hangs up. He taps his phone against his thigh a few times before twisting around and slapping Eugene’s and Bobby’s legs. “My mom says hi,” he tells them.

Bobby doesn’t stir. Eugene’s eyelids flutter, and mumbles blearily, “Hi, mom,” before going back to sleep.

Nick sits back, trying to avoid looking at Seiji. He had to have heard every word of that conversation, there’s no way he couldn’t. Phone calls carry in silent cars, even clearer than over water. He chews his lower lip, wondering if something should be said.

Seiji breaks the silence first. “Don’t Christmas dinners usually have turkey,” he says, “or lamb?”

Nick glances over, lightning fast. “Those are expensive.”

Seiji nods like he understands. A few more beats of quiet pass. “I’ve never met your mother,” he says, then follows with the dreadfully logical conclusion, “Do you often talk about me with her?”

“I may have _mentioned_ you,” Nick says by way of excuse, eyes burning a hole through the windshield. He’s never been an especially good liar. “She’s just good with names.”

Seiji nods, again. “You seem close.”

That puts him on the defense. “Look, if you’re going to call me a Mama’s Boy—”

“I wasn’t,” Seiji interrupts, adjusting his grip on the wheel.

Nick studies him for a long moment, trying to find any insincerity in his perfect posture. When he comes up empty, he’s not sure what to think. He takes a deep breath and tells him, “It’s been just me and my mom for—my whole life, really. I think that would make anyone close.”

Seiji nods a third time, but this one is slower, more considering. He watches the road, but half of his attention seems far away. In another country, maybe. “What does she do that keeps her so late?”

“Depends on the day,” Nick says with a shrug. When Seiji’s eyebrows twitch, he explains, “She works at a Circle K and a Fed-Ex warehouse, and her shift times are always changing. It’s a scheduling nightmare for her supervisors.”

For an instance, Nick worries Seiji will make a snide comment about their lower-middle-class status, but when Seiji speaks, it’s only to mumble, “Wow.”

“Yeah, she works really hard.” Nick turns in his seat, propping his knee against the center console. “What does your mom do? Something that takes her out of the country, I’m assuming.”

It’s an innocent question—or, Nick thinks it is—but Seiji goes quiet. His brow furrows at the road, like he’s solving an equation in his head, and says with a new softness, “I don’t know, actually.”

The air conditioner and hum of the engine muffles most of the peripheral noises, but thunder rolls through the closed windows. The low full moon hides behind Seiji, the pale light throwing his profile into sharp relief. He rolls his lower lip between his teeth. With all his pomp and condescension, Nick forgets that he’s a boy, just like him. He looks especially young, thinking about his mother.

“I’m sure she does something important,” Nick tells him, lowering his voice, “if she can’t come home for Christmas.”

Seiji shutters. “It doesn’t matter. We don’t celebrate Christmas.”

It’s a textbook deflection, but Nick only nods. Seiji’s home problems are far from his concern, but, of course, an unfortunate consequence of living with someone for so long is a specified empathy. Thinking of a young Seiji waiting for his parents to come home for a holiday, Nick can’t deny the disquiet that niggles at him.

That conversation died with Seiji’s deflection, and Nick doesn’t have another topic readily available, so he settles for leaning his head back against the window and watching Seiji drive. Fencing forced Nick to get over staring at people. Seiji has never cared about being stared at. A convenient combination, and one Nick sometimes exploits.

But it’s hard to not stare at Seiji, when the opportunity presents itself. He has a quality that demands your attention and a grace that makes you stop and observe. His presence fills up the room; Nick used to think it was suffocating, but now he believes it’s like arms wrapped around you, pulling you in, it’s like gravity. These thoughts he usually keeps to himself, though, and barely indulges them even within the confines of his head. Dangerous, dangerous things.

Seiji also looks like he’s walked right out of a damn Abercrombie magazine. Which helps nothing.

“At some point, you need to blink,” Seiji says flatly, bringing Nick back to himself. Dangerous things.

“Huh?” Nick hums dumbly. “I wasn’t doing anything.”

Seiji side-eyes him, only taking his gaze off the road for a moment. Always careful, always with intent. “Don’t look at me like that,” he says.

Nick’s eyebrows scrunch. “Like what?”

“Like we’re friends.”

Nick scoffs. “I wasn’t looking at you like that. I hate you.”

“Good. I hate you, too,” Seiji says, but amusement pulls at his lips.

This might be Nick’s favorite Seiji. The playful one, the one that peeks out when no one can see, but Nick, the one that plays the game. It seems this Seiji only reveals itself in the dark, when it’s hard to see unless you look. Nick doesn’t mean to be arrogant, but he’s sure he’s the only one with the privilege.

“What did I just say?” Seiji says. He leans his elbow against the door, resting his head on his fist and releasing some of the tension from his shoulders. His other hand holds the wheel in a loose grip.

“I’m not doing it on purpose, I swear,” Nick says, a slow grin spreading across his face.

Eugene snorts from the backseat, and Nick glances back to make sure he’s still asleep. That this fragile bubble around him and Seiji is still intact. Maybe not only in the dark. The parameters under which the boy Seiji, rather than the prodigy rich kid Seiji, will reveal himself aren’t explicitly stated—or Nick, at least, has yet to find wherever they’re written. The stars have to align. The planets must be in specific formation. Something with astrology, something totally lost on Nick, but endlessly interesting.

Seiji is already looking at him when he settles back.

“Now, you’re doing it,” Nick accuses, poking Seiji in the cheek and turning his head forward. “Eyes on the road.”

“I wasn’t doing anything. I hate you,” Seiji says without feeling. Nick rolls his eyes, but Seiji isn’t done with him, yet. He chews thoughtfully on his lower lip, then says with a rather suggestive tone, “The cute roommate, huh?”

Panic is a hot spike in Nick’s spine. “I—W—I, uhh… That’s actually our other roommate,” he says, scratching his neck, then inwardly cringes.

Seiji hums and nods, unconvinced. He takes another sip of his coffee.

\--

The bubble dissolves when they pull into the motel parking lot. Not immediately. They both pause after Seiji turns the car off, before Nick opens his door. They lock eyed across the car, only for a moment, and then Nick pulls the handle and tumbles out of the seat.

Seiji climbs out with a little more poise. “I’ll check in,” Seiji says without looking at him and heads for the office. Nick shoots a quick text to his mother about their arrival.

It takes a couple good shakes to wake Eugene, but Bobby comes back to life with a soft touch and whispered word. He dislodges his knee from under Eugene’s arm and scrubs his face. Nick waits for some of the lucidity to return to his face and says, “Rise and shine, buddy. We’re here.”

Bobby heaves a disturbingly cat-like yawn and stretches his arms above his head, fists knocking against the Prius ceiling. Eugene is still figuring out how to move his limbs, but mumbles something about kayaking. Bobby rubs his eyes again and blinks blearily up to Nick. “What time is it?” he asks, throat thick with sleep.

Nick checks his phone. “About one.”

Eugene whimpers and makes like he’s about to go back to sleep. Nick grabs one of the crumpled-up potato chip bags discarded on the floor of the car and throws it at him, nailing him in the cheek. Eugene comes back swinging at air, before settling back, a little more awake. Bobby rubs his eyes for a third time and stretches his arms out over Nick’s shoulder, like a kid would.

Nick receives the message and hauls Bobby up by the middle, pretty much the only thing keeping him upright. “Gene,” Bobby mutters, waving a hand back into the car like Eugene can see him. “Gene. Get up. Beds.”

At the word, Eugene’s eyes snap open. He climbs out of the car with all the faculties of a boy wide awake and looks expectantly to Nick. “Beds?”

“Seiji’s grabbing the key,” Nick says, adjusting his hold on an all but limp Bobby. As if on cue, the boy wonder himself reappears with a few keycards in hand.

“Room two-oh-eight,” Seiji says, holding out one of the cards. When Nick reaches for it, Seiji pulls back. “I know you’re in the habit of losing but try not to lose this. A replacement costs ten dollars.”

Nick makes a face at him and snatches the keycard. A moment of vulnerable, boyish Seiji is always followed up by an extended period of focused bitchiness. Hauling Bobby upstairs is a chore, but luckily he wakes enough to walk halfway up the stairs. Nick swipes the keycard over the lock and shepherds them through the door. Bobby unceremoniously belly flops on the nearest queen. Eugene stays awake long enough to toss the cushions off the couch to pull out the third bed, then kicks his shoes off and falls asleep on the bare mattress.

Nick pulls one of the spare sheets from the linen closet and tosses it to Eugene. Instead of spreading it across the bed, Eugene curls up around it, holding it close to his chest. Nick turns to head back out and grab their stuff but pauses when he sees Seiji, blank-faced.

Nick tracks the boys gaze to the beds, two of them plus the pull-out couch. There’s no expression, but Nick can see the tense line of his mouth. Nick can almost see the math he’s going in his head. Four boys, three beds.

Seiji’s eyes cut to him. “I’m not sharing with you,” he says firmly. Where he had seemed moderately warm in the dark car, he is now ice cold. “It’s awful enough sharing a room with you on my vacation.”

The insult was completely unnecessary, but Nick bites off a number of colorful retorts in favor of brainstorming a more constructive solution. He surveys the room, considering what few options are available. Bobby in bed is all elbows and knees; Nick is pretty sure he fights in his dreams, but Bobby denies it. Bobby kicks, but Eugene is an unstoppable cuddler. There isn’t a bed big enough to keep Eugene away when he sleeps.

Seeing his hesitation, Seiji says, “I’ll go rent another room. I’m sure there’s one available.”

Nick seizes his wrist before he can go far. “ _No_ ,” he says, jaw set. “Not again. You’re staying in here with us.”

The bathtub is less than ideal, so Nick really only has one option: “I’ll just sleep on the floor. Whatever.” He lets go of Seiji and runs his hand through his hair. It’s not that bad, and Nick is too tired to fight.

He smacks Seiji on the shoulder, probably harder than he needs to. “Help me with the luggage.”

It takes two trips to drag everything upstairs. Their trip is only three-odd days long, but Bobby brought two bags of clothes _just in case_ , Eugene brought a separate bag for snacks, and Seiji and Nick only have so many hands. When Nick jokes about Seiji forgetting his fencing gear, Seiji mumbles something about Coach Williams and confiscation. Nick pulls the last bag over his shoulder and waits for Seiji to shut the hatchback.

Before he does, he pauses. “Why was it so important to stay in this _motel_?” He says the last word with that condescension Nick can’t stand. Seiji surveys the parking lot, the cracked pavement, and nondescript white building.

Nick turns, holding the strap of the bag with one hand and pointing with the other. Conveniently, a bolt of lightning flashes in the distance, casting the nearby steel-frame bridge in silhouette. He squints at it, like he’ll see something important. “That’s why.”

Seiji gives him a flat look.

“Come on, killjoy. I have a floor to sleep on.”

Eugene is awake when they drop the last bags at the foot of Bobby’s bed. Or, at least, awake enough to be pulling his new _two-seater_ shirt over his head and burrowing under the sheet Nick gave him. Nick considers it, really considers it, then sees Eugene wrap his arms around his pillow in a vise grip and throws the thought out the window. Nick dejectedly switches off all the lights.

While Seiji colonizes the bathroom, Nick pulls every spare sheet, blanket, and pillow from the linen closet. He attempts to arrange them in some kind of order on the carpet, but quickly gives up. After changing into sleeping clothes, he settles into his nest, checks the weather forecast, and waits for Seiji to finish.

He brushes his teeth in record time. Seiji is still arranging his pillows when Nick returns to his makeshift bed. Thunder rumbles softly. “I hope you brought a raincoat,” Nick says, placing one of his arms behind his head. “Looks like we brought the storm with us.”

The carpet is hard, packed from years of tourism, and strangely digs into his back. Seiji sighs through his nose, and the bed creaks as he shifts. “Try not to fart,” he says.

Nick flips him the bird, knowing he can’t see it in the dark. Soon after, Seiji’s breath evens out, joining Eugene’s soft snoring and Bobby’s shifting limbs. Nick tries to relax despite his discomfort and eventually falls asleep with a reassuring thought.

Tomorrow, the hunt begins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> uhhhh so there's prolly not gonna be another chapter for a fat minute. i'm probably halfway through the third chapter, but i haven't written very much in a few weeks bc i've been depressed and also rediscovered stardew valley which is,, just,,., such a great game. but fear not, bc i already like know how this is gonna play out and i will finish this fic, even if it kills me. i will find the mothman. 
> 
> see ya later

**Author's Note:**

> ty for reading!! lmk if you like it and maaaaaaybe i'll finish something for once.


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